“Siberia Peak”

On the summit ridge of “Sibera Peak” looking south, July 12th. Click to enlarge.

A few weekends back Rick and I made the long drive up the Lead King Road from Marble and climbed “Siberia Peak” (13,420 ft). It was a short, sweet day with lots of four-wheeling in Rick’s truck, a fun scramble, and a really cool summit in one of my favorite areas in the state.

“Siberia Peak” resides about a mile to the northwest of Snowmass Mountain, and has got to be one of the least climbed thirteeners in Colorado. It’s short enough that it doesn’t make any of the popular lists, and it’s tucked away in one of the harder-to-access areas in the Elks (especially now with the upper leg of the Lead King Loop blocked by avy debris). If you do decide to climb Siberia, you’ll very likely have the mountain and the entire upper-drainage around Siberia Lake all to yourself.

Lake Geneva and Snowmass Mountain. I had previously visited this area in 2007, 2009, and 2012 to climb Snowmass a couple times as well as Hagerman Peak.

Columbine popping off.

After a nearly two-hour drive up the now very rough dirt road from Marble, we made quick work of the trail to Lake Geneva and continued on up the drainage to the aptly named Little Gem Lake. Not long after we came upon the banks of Siberia Lake and had a clear view of the route up “Siberia Peak”. The weather wasn’t about to let us off the hook for our late-start so easily though, and as soon as we made it to the lake it started to rain as the skies darkened above.

So we decided to huddle up inside a natural shelter of sorts for an hour and eat lunch.

Eventually the worst of the squall blew over and we were on our way up “Siberia Peak”. The higher we climbed the better the views became…

Snowmass across the way and Siberia Lake down below.

Another one of Snowmass from higher up. Click to enlarge.

Interestingly enough, despite Snowmass and its connecting ridge to Capitol being some of the loosest terrain in the entire range, the scrambling up Siberia was about as solid as solid gets. A choose-your-own-adventure route with lots of opportunities to mix things up.

Summit of “Siberia Peak” with Capitol Peak in back.

One of the finer views of Cap you’ll find anywhere. Time to get out of here! Click to enlarge.

In typical Colorado fashion, the dark clouds which had been barking all day wound up having little bite, and all but evaporated as soon as we made it back down to the lake. From there it was an easy schlep back down to the TH and truck.

Siberia Lake. We decided to stay for a bit and ice the feet in the glacial water.

Brews back at the truck.

Despite three prior trips into the area I had never actually seen the Crystal Mill before. Pretty cool spot really.

Rick that was a nice little day out my friend. Let’s get another one here soon…